Monday, April 15, 2013

[In
1903-4, the U.S.
experienced a "cabbage snake" scare which began with reports of
deaths caused by cooking cabbages concealing a strange worm or snake. After the
panic ended, cabbage snakes were still occasionally found, but they came to be
considered as a curiosity -- albeit a
deadly one -- to be collected and displayed. The first item below indicates
that the panic may have been based on an older belief connecting poisonous
snakes and cabbages. -- bc]

The
St. John Daily Sun [New Brunswick], 8 August 1892, p. 1.

SNAKE IN THE CABBAGE

Louisville, Ky., Aug. 7. -- A family of four and the cook, near
Buenavista, died today from eating cabbage with which a poisonous snake had
been accidentally cooked.

Gainesville, Ga. October 21 -- (Special) -- What
kind of insect, reptile, or "varmint" is it that is ruining the
cabbage of the farmers in northeast Georgia?

That
is the question that is the all-absorbing topic through White, Townes, Union,
Dawson, Forsythe and other counties in this section of the state where cabbage are
grown extensively for the market. Gainesville
is the principle distributing point for the people of the above named counties
and since the news has reached this city of the serious consequences arising
from the discovery of the insect or reptile found in some of the cabbage, the
market has been glutted and there is no sale for this vegetable here.

Some
days ago a farmer in White county while gathering cabbage discovered a small
worm or what appeared to be a worm, in a head of cabbage. He inspected it
closely and found it to be about two inches long and about the size of an
ordinary needle.

He
says it licked its tongue out like a snake when he touched the leaf it was on, and
that it was shaped very much like a snake.

He
became alarmed and to satisfy himself as to what it was he sent it to the state
chemist for analysis to see whether or not it was poisonous. The state chemist
analyzed it and reported that there was enough poison in the thing to kill
fifteen persons.

Many
Mysterious Deaths

When
the news came back of the deadly poison in the reptile or insect, consternation
spread throughout the cabbage belt. A general discussion of the affair brought
to light the fact that a number of people have recently died in White and
Forsyth counties from mysterious causes. And every death has occurred after
cabbage has been eaten.

A
man by the name of Dyer brought one of the [things] to Gainesville Saturday in [illegible] of
alcohol in which it had been preserved and it was viewed by hundreds of people.
It was not over two inches long and looked exactly like a small snake.

Mr.
Dyer states that several deaths had occurred in White county where he lives from
eating cabbage in which it was believed one of these little things had been
cooked. They are so small that it is difficult for a housewife to wash them out
of the vegetable when preparing them for cooking.

The
discovery of the poisonous worms or reptiles in the cabbage has resulted in
cutting this vegetable from the menu card in this section of northeast Georgia
and the farmers are greatly agitated over the matter.

New
York Times, 13 August 1904, p. 2.

BOILED CABBAGE AND SNAKES.

Tennesseans Suffer from Singular Food -- Big Crop Goes Begging.

Special
to the New York Times.

MEMPHIS, Tenn., Aug. 12. -- Cases of poisoning attributed to eating
cabbage in which snakes had been boiled have attracted wide attention in
various parts of Tennessee, and the latest is
the Morilton family, at Tullahoma,
where several people are ill.

The
trouble has led to a careful search for snakes in vegetables, and from a dozen
counties in middle Tennessee
reports come of the discovery of reptiles. Many people have quit eating
cabbages, and the result is that with the biggest crop ever produced in the
State, they are selling at 20 cents a barrel, while in the small towns one
cannot give them away, and they are being fed to live stock.

St.
Joseph Gazette [Missouri],
26 August 1904, p. 1.

CABBAGE "SNAKE" IN WYATT PARK

Residents
of Wyatt Park are greatly agitated over finding in heads of cabbage delivered
from local groceries, a peculiar worm, known as the cabbage snake, said to be
poisonous.

Throughout
many of the western and northern states the worm has been found in great
numbers in the fields of cabbage, and is some instances is supposed to be
responsible for the death of those eating the vegetable.

The
bureau of agriculture has been notified and is making a thorough investigation
of the matter. Some time ago it was reported from an Ohio town that two girls, after eating
cooked cabbage, had died from the effects of what was supposed to be poison
resulting from this source.

However,
attending physicians[,] though finding traces of the worm, were of the opinion
that death may have been due to the effects of Paris green or other poison used
as a medium for the extermination of cabbage bugs.

Several
persons in Wyatt Park have discovered the "snake" in heads of cabbage
and as the result have banished the vegetable from their homes.

Unlike
the common worm, the newly found species seeks admittance to the heart of the
cabbage, forcing itself between the leaves.

Only
on opening the cabbage can the worm be discovered. The specimens found by Wyatt
Park residents are about six inches in length and almost the color of cabbage
leaves.

In
points throughout Iowa,
where the cabbage industry is followed on an immense scale, farmers are plowing
up their fields in order to rid the ground of the pest.

Dubuque Daily Telegraph [Iowa], 17 October 1904, p. 8.

"CABBAGE SNAKES" IN IOWA

Said to Have Come From Missouri
and Are Pronounced Poisonous by Dr. Robinson.

The
"cabbage snake" has invaded Iowa.
It was found near the Missouri
border, and probably came over. [...]

One
Dr. Robinson, living at Grand River, secured a specimen of the cabbage snake
and fed it to a cat on a piece of meat and the report is current that the cat
died. [...]

Warsaw
Daily Union [Indiana],
12 December 1904, p. 3.

ATE POISONED CABBAGE.

Entire Family of Six, Living Near Siddell,
Ill., Dead as a Result

Siddell, Ill., Dec. 12. -- James Rankin, aged 60; Mary Rankin, aged
56; and four children, living near here, are dead from the effects of eating
poisoned cabbage. The entire family of six ate the cabbage at supper and died
during the night. The cabbage was examined and nothing found. That in the
garden was examined and found to contain worms about the size of a thread and
eight or ten inches long about the color of the cabbage. The cabbage was cut up
and fed to animals and all died. Farmers are destroying all their cabbage.
Three persons in the neighborhood have recently died from the effects of the
cabbage.

Springfield, Ill., Dec. 12. -- Dr. George Thomas Palmer left Sunday for
Sidell, Vermillion county, to investigate the cause of deaths in the family of
James Rankin. A report to the state board of health states that the six persons
were found dead in their beds, poisoned from eating cabbage. Dr. Egan, secretary
of the board, decided to make a searching investigation. A number of similar
cases of poisoning by "cabbage snake" have been reported to the board
during the past few days.

The
Washington
Post, 9 January 1905, p. 11.

SCOTCHES THE SNAKE

Terror of Virginia Cabbage Patches Laid Low.

IS ONLY A HARMLESS WORM

[...]
Some one in the southwestern part of the State found the remains of a small
snake in a dish of corn beef and cabbage, which had been partaken of by his
mother-in-law. When the news was broken to the dear old lady she promptly threw
a fit, and the intelligence spread that she had suffered poison through
devouring food in which a cabbage snake had buried its deadly fangs.

The
next development came with the hasty retreat from his field of a worthy farmer
who declared that a cabbage snake had elevated itself on its rear extremity and
with a devilish glare made at him with six-foot bounds, evidently interested
upon a personal encounter. [...]

The
sale of whisky [...] increased wonderfully, every well conducted family deeming
it the part of wisdom to have a few quarts of antidote on hand for use in cases
of emergency. The old axiom to the effect that a pint of prevention is worth a
gallon of cure being one of the principles drilled into the minds of the
population of these parts since the days of Nathaniel Bacon, most of the people
consumed their whisky in advance of being bitten and then bought more. In
consequence, the cause of temperance was threatened, and the small vote cast
for the prohibition candidates at the last election is understood to have been
due to the unwillingness of suffragists to subscribe to any creed which would
deprive them of the blessed privilege of a free people to protect itself from
an agonizing death through the venom of the merciless cabbage snake.

Many
remedies were suggested, but appeared to avail nothing. One of these was to
turn hogs loose to destroy the snakes, but the hogs ate all the cabbage without
apparently diminishing the crop of serpents. [...]

The
Ithaca Democrat
[New York], 26 January 1905, p. 4.

COST OF CABBAGE SNAKE LIE.

Produce Merchant Declares it was Just $5,000,000.

"Five
million dollars paid for a lie," is the way J. W. Brown, a Des Moines wholesale
produce merchant, describes the sequel to the story concerning the cabbage
snake. Some one started a yarn to the effect that a small worm, or snake, was
concealed in many of the cabbages on the market, and as a result cabbages are
rotting in the produce cellars. People are afraid to buy them. It is estimated
that there are at least $10,000 worth of cabbage in Des Moines which no one will purchase, while
it is claimed that the damage caused by the story throughout the nation will
not be less than $5,000,000. Trade papers are discussing the matter in a furious
vein, and regular cabbage raisers declare they would raise a big reward for the
punishment of the cabbage snake liar if punishment were possible.

Iola
Daily Register [Kansas],
7 October 1905, p. 5.

THE CABBAGE SNAKE IS A WORM

The Theory That It Is a Horsehair Disposed of by Dr. Heylmun.

"A
cabbage snake is a worm."

After
a very patient and painstaking investigation into the matter at the undertaking
rooms of Claude Culbertson this morning, Dr. Heylmun made this statement.

The
particular cabbage snake which was the subject of the investigation was brought
to Mr. Culbertson by Mrs. Harry Grubbs, a colored woman who lives in the north
part of the city. Mrs. Grubbs found the snake in a head of cabbage.

The
statement that a cabbage snake is a worm disposes of the theory that it is
ahorse hair. Many skeptics have held to
the belief that it is a horse hair. Dr. Heylmun himself was not sure that it was
not a horse hair until he had subjected it to a microscopic examination this
morning. He was inclined to the horse hair theory. He went into the matter
prejudiced against the cabbage snake, and ready to announce that it was nothing
more or less than an electrical phenomenon, possessed of no animal life, and
incapable of working injury to any human being, but now that he has
investigated the matter, his mind is clouded in doubt, and while he is not
ready to say that the cabbage snake is poisonous, neither is he willing to go
on record as saying that it is not poisonous.

"The
cabbage snake is unknown to science," said the doctor. "It is a new
thing under the sun."" [...]

But
is the cabbage snake poisonous? Aye, there's the rub. Nobody knows, and so far nobody
has come forward who is willing to prostrate himself upon the altar of science for
the common good. Nobody will eat one. Nobody will eat one, and then calmly lie
down and await results, while the whole city waits with bated breath -- tense and expectant. [...]

West
Lebanon Gazette [Indiana],
11 October 1906, p. 1.

FOUND CABBAGE SNAKE

Mrs. Clarence Haupt Discovers One in a Head Cabbage

Thursday
morning while Mrs. Clarence Haupt was preparing a head of cabbage for the
noonday meal she was startled by finding a cabbage snake rolled up in two balls
in the interior of the vegetable. She carefully extracted the snake and
uncoiling it found it to be 18 inches in length. She preserved the stranger and
when her husband came in for dinner showed it to him. They placed it in a
bottle of water and Saturday Clarence brought it into town, and it is now on
exhibition at this office. The "snake" as stated above, is 18 inches
in length, and about the size of a large thread, and almost pure white in
color. It seemingly has no developed head and the tail is quite sharply
pointed. It is very much alive and keeps coiling and uncoiling around itself.

The
cabbage snake is still an unsolved riddle, but Wm. See of this place has given
the most reasonable excuse for its existence that we have yet heard. It is a
well known fact that a hair from the tail of a horse, when placed in water
during the new moon will shortly exhibit all the signs of life and turn into a
snake as long as it is kept immersed. Mr. See thinks that occasionally a horse
hair will be blown into the folds of a head of cabbage, all the conditions
being favorable for incubation and the hair developes [sic] into a snake in the cabbage just the
same as in water. Being inclosed in the vegetable it naturally partakes of the
color of the same, and shut out from sunlight, naturally bleeches [sic] white. He
proposes next year to experiment upon this theory and see if he can not develop
the cabbage snake at pleasure." [...]

Lawrence Daily Journal [Kansas],
25 July 1906, p. 4.

RARE SPECIMEN ON EXHIBIT

Discussed Cabbage Snake on Exhibition at University

A
cabbage snake captured at La Harpe has been sent to the University, where it is
now on exhibition in the natural history building. [...] The specimen at the
university resembles nothing so much as a corn silk. It is about 18 inches long
and when first received at the University was very active.

The
Weekly Advocate [Victoria County, Texas],
21 March 1908, p. 3.

WATCH OUT FOR CABBAGE SNAKES

Are About Six Inches in Length, the Color of the Vegetable and Deadly
Poisonous

Yoakum
Herald.

A
few days ago a small green snake was found in cabbage that a lady of this city
was preparing for dinner.

The
snake was taken out and killed, and the cabbage cut into four quarters and put
on to boil. The lady told a lady friend about the find and was advised not to
use the cabbage. Both went to look at that which was in the pot and found the
second snake. The Herald is informed that these little fellows are most
dangerous, being very poisonous, and if cooked with cabbage will produce death
within a short time. If this is true, then the lady in question had a very
narrow escape because she did not know that death is said to follow almost
instantly after eating cabbage that has been cooked with one of those innocent
looking snakes. They are not over six inches in length and are almost the color
of the cabbage, so that one has look closely to find them.

The
Weekly Advocate [Victoria County, Texas],
11 April 1908, p. 2

CABBAGE "SNAKES" HARMLESS WORMS

Their General Disposition Milder Than Slugs Occasionally Found in
Lettuce.

Texas Stockman Journal.

Now
comes the season of the year when the good house-wife begins to discover
cabbage snakes and the fertile correspondent increases his monthly earnings by
marvelous stories of the "venomous reptiles" found in one of the
commonest garden vegetables.

Occasionally
the correspondent goes so far as to have the snakes cooked and eaten so that
whole families are made deathly sick. The result, aside from what the correspondent
gets out of it, is that many sensible people are frightened and even prejudiced
against using cabbage at all. [...]

Warsaw
Daily Times [Indiana],
26 March 1908, p. 1.

CABBAGE SNAKE A FACT

One Is Found by a Farmer's Wife in the Center of a Head She Cut.

Greenburg, Ind., March 26. -- A daughter of Will Magee, farmer, near
this city, while cutting a cabbage head, found a cabbage snake in the center of
the solid head, and Magee has placed in on exhibition here, confined in a
bottle filled with water. Under a powerful microscope the snake shows a small
black head and a skin similar to the ordinary reptile.

It
is about twelve inches in length, in circumference resembling a small wire, and
in color so nearly like the cabbage leaf that it is hard to distinguish. It is
the first one ever exhibited in this county. Magee says that the specimen has
grown in length since being placed in the bottle.

Waterloo Daily Courier [Iowa],
9 October 1908, p. 5.

CABBAGE SNAKE BOBS UP ALIVE

Wriggling Thing Discovered by Waterloo
Housewife

"Worm" One Foot in Length and Color of Vegetable Leaf

A
specimen of the so-called reptile, the cabbage snake, has been discovered in Waterloo and his
snakeship, or wormship, or some crawling thing, is safely housed in a bottle and
on exhibition in the editorial rooms of the Courier office. [...]

Lawrence Daily Journal [Kansas], 9 August 1910, p. 1.

CABBAGE SNAKE

Perfect Specimen of the Dreaded Reptile Recently Discovered in Towanda

NO LARGER THAN A THREAD

Merely Appeared to be A Spot on Cabbage Leaf

EATING OF SNAKE IS FATAL

Towanda, Kan., Aug. 9. -- A perfect specimen of the dreaded
"cabbage snake" was discovered by Mrs. Lida Morris last Monday
morning when she was preparing a head of cabbage for dinner. It is one of the
first specimen of the rare and strange reptile ever seen in Sedgwick county,
although two years ago several members of a family are said to have died after
eating cabbage containing the snake.

The
specimen caught by Mrs. Morris was more than a foot in length, although its
body was scarcely the thickness of a thread. Its head was flat like that of all
reptiles, and now and then it would shoot forth a tiny, forked tongue. [...]

Had
not Mrs. Morris discovered the snake and had she cooked it in the cabbage all
those who partook of the dish probably would have died, as few persons have
been known to recover were caused by the cabbage snake several years ago, when
it was strangely plentiful. At that time newspapers and magazines contained
copious warnings against it and cabbage was tabooed on many tables. But it,
like the "kissing bug" dropped into comparative obscurity and few
specimens have been seen in the past two years. [...]

The
Champaign Democrat [Urbana,
Ohio], 8 October 1912, p. 3.

Snake Is Found In Cabbage Head

POISONOUS VARIETY HAD BEEN CHOPPED INTO SAUER KRAUT SPOILING SIX
GALLONS.

Had
it not been for the keen sight of Mrs. John VanCulin and Mrs. A. L. Barley, of
St. Paris, numerous individuals residing in the immediate vicinity of that
place might have enjoyed or rather suffered the experience of not only seeing,
but actually eating snake. And worst of all, the reptile which had
inadvertently been neatly sliced and mixed in with six gallons of sumptuous
sauer kraut, was of a dangerous and poisonous species. [...]

The
Champaign Democrat [Urbana,
Ohio], 3 December 1912, p. 2.

New Menace Has Been Found

CABBAGE SNAKE IS SAID TO BE DEADLY POISON -- MIGHT BE IN SLAW OR KRAUT.

[...]
It is told by a Spanish-American war veteran that when stationed at Chickamauga Park three soldiers met their death by
eating particles of the cabbage snake. [...]

Spartanburg Herald [South Carolina], 2 September 1922, p. 2.

FEARSOME CABBAGE SNAKE BACK AGAIN TO FRIGHTEN PEOPLE

(Special
to the Herald.)

Greenwood, Aug. 31. -- After several years of obscurity, the
fearsome cabbage snake has returned. A specimen of the uncanny serpent,
believed by some to cause instant death if eaten, had been captured and caged
in a peanut butter jar here, where it is being watched with fearful interest by
cabbage consumers. Some insist that to eat the thing means death by poisoning.
A few years ago, the cabbage snake caused considerable commotion among
vegetarians of certain districts of this state.

The
newly discovered pest is a long, sallow, thread of a worm that appears to be
weary of life. Some think it is merely an attenuated earthworm that got into to
cabbage in its youth and ended. Others insist that it is a true cabbage snake
and they issue solemn warning against eating cabbage. So consternation reigns
among cabbage consumers and even kraut is tabooed in places.

Sarasota Herald [Florida], 26 April 1935, p. 1.

'CABBAGE SNAKE' IS EXHIBITED HERE

A
pint-size milk bottle brought into the Herald office today contained a less
than an inch long "cabbage snake" said by the possessor to be more
poisonous than a rattlesnake.

With
its inch long body coiled at the bottom of the bottle, the reptile, if such it
was, looked hardly more dangerous than a worm. A negro woman in Newtown came across it
first, while washing a head of cabbage. She had washed it twice and during the
third washing found the miniature reptile. The possessor, said "If she cut
that up with the cabbage, it would have killed somebody sure."

http://archive.org/details/carm00usde

Circular
No. 62, Revised Edition

Issued
July 28, 1908

United
States Department of Agriculture

Bureau
of Entomology

L.
O. Howard, Entomologist and Chief of Bureau

The Cabbage Hair-Worm

By
F. H. Chittenden,

Entomologist
in Charge of Breeding Experiments

Not
since the "kissing-bug" craze which originated in Washington, D. C,
in June, 1899, and spread generally throughout the country, has there been
anything like such a furore as was created by the discovery of the so-called
"cabbage snake," a species of hair-worm, in the heads of cabbage in
Tennessee, South Carolina, and Louisiana, in the fall of 1903. That year the
cabbage-snake scare was practically confined to Tennessee and neighboring States southward.
The first specimen of Mermis albicans
Diesing, which is the cause of the trouble, was identified from McCays, Tenn.
This creature and its still somewhat mysterious occurrence in cabbage have
become a matter of much perplexity and annoyance to many of our correspondents,
to economic entomologists, and to chemists and physicians of the States where
the Mermis most abounds. Many reports have been received from reliable
correspondents of rumors of persons
being poisoned by eating Cabbage affected by this hair-worm. Some of these were
gleaned from the daily press, and many clippings of the "yellow
journalism" order were received. Among them were alleged reports from a
physician who stated that when cabbage affected by hair-worms was eaten it
produced instant death, and from a "State chemist" who made an
examination of the worm and reported that it contained enough poison "to
kill eight persons." In Raleigh County, W. Va.,
the cabbage crop was reported a complete failure, and "there was enough
poison contained in one worm to poison 25 men." It should be unnecessary
to add that none of these reports had any foundation in fact. Nevertheless the known presence of the hair-worm in an
affected district seriously injured the demand for cabbage there, causing very considerable
loss to truckers and grocers. The exaggerated reports of 1903 were not
seriously considered; and it was a matter of surprise when they were reiterated
the following year, and what was in reality a hoax assumed most serious
proportions, not alone because of widespread alarm caused by erroneous reports
of loss of life, but also because of the very material loss to cabbage growers
and others who handled this commodity, and the decided extension of the area in
which the hair-worm was detected. Encouraged by erroneous reports, evidently
incited in many cases by unscrupulous persons, the scare soon became
widespread, causing general fear of poisoning from Virginia
and West Virginia
southward through the same States as were affected in 1903, and into Florida, and in addition westward to Kentucky. Illinois,
Iowa, Missouri,
Oklahoma, and Colorado. [...]

LOSSES
OCCASIONED BY RUMORS OF THE POISONOUS NATURE OF THE HAIR-WORM.

The
presence of this hair-worm in cabbage and the unfortunate notoriety which has
been given it, including the circulation of the merest rumors, mostly vague and
uncertain, of so many persons being poisoned by eating affected cabbage, has
seriously injured the money value of this vegetable very generally throughout
the affected States. Although the cabbage hair-worm is not in the slightest
degree deleterious to health, the credence given to the most absurd rumors
which were circulated has injured cabbage for consumption and hence for sale.
In parts of Illinois
the fears of growers and purchasers were such that farmers were letting their
cabbage go to waste. At Quinter, Kans.,
quantities of cabbage shipped from Colorado
were reported burned because of the presence of the hair-worm. In Tennessee it was
estimated that in 1904 fully 85 per cent of the cabbage crop of the State was
lost — in fact, a sudden and complete suspension of the industry was actually
caused. Similar reports were received from various portions of Missouri, Iowa, West Virginia, and Virginia.
''In Cheatham, Smith, Franklin, Coffee, Bedford, and other counties [in Missouri] hundreds of barrels of sauerkraut
were destroyed through fear that the dreaded snake might be a part of the
ingredients." At Columbia,
Mo., hundreds of dollars' worth
of cabbage was lost. Many gardeners claimed that they could not sell a single
head on account of the "snake scare."

ALLEGED
SICKNESS AND DEATH CAUSED BY HAIR-WORMS.

The
general impression in regard to the poisonous nature of the cabbage hair-worm
has been mentioned, yet considerable differences of opinion prevail. To repeat
alleged deaths and poisonings in detail might have the opposite effect from
that for which this circular was prepared. Stories were circulated of whole
families being poisoned by eating cabbage affected with the hair-worm,
sometimes with the reservation that do one knew personally of their truth, and that many cases were traced to their
source and found to be utterly without foundation. From Tennessee came a report of the death in one
town of a man. woman, and six children. In portions of the same and in other
States persons were stated to have been taken ill with pain and vomiting after
having eaten cabbage on which the worms were subsequently found. Possibly the
consumers had been seized with temporary hysteria, imagining that they had
unconsciously eaten many individuals, hence the symptoms. Others were reported
severely poisoned or dead. In most cases exact localities were furnished, but
names were wanting. In some cases domestic animals were said to have been
poisoned; in others cabbage was fed to them without any ill results.

The
death of a man and wife and their four children in an Illinois town after eating snake-worm
infested cabbage was reported in several newspapers and the family name
mentioned:

The
entire family of six ate the cabbage at supper and died during

the
night. A cabbage in the garden was examined and found to

contain
worms the size of a thread, 8 or 10 inches long and about

the
color of the cabbage. The cabbage was cut up and fed to animals,

and
all died. Farmers are destroying all their cabbage. Three persons

in
the neighborhood have recently died after eating cabbage.

In
response to inquiry from this office the postmaster of this town, the name of
which is omitted for obvious reasons, wrote December 17, 1904, that efforts
were made to locate the origin of the account, but without success. [...]

The
Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron): [...] On another occasion, one assistant had
put in a hand-written note to Mrs Thatcher to say, “Please can you re-sign this
minute?” Unfortunately she had left off the hyphen, leaving a note that
actually read, “Please can you resign this minute?” -- to which the Prime
Minister politely replied, “Thank you dear, but I’d rather not.” [...]

Perhaps
the oddest claim about the legacy of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher,
who died on Monday at the age of eighty-seven, is, in the words of the
Washington Post, that she “helped invent ice cream as we know it.” Soft-serve,
specifically. [...]

Gullible
bargain hunters at Argentina's
largest bazaar are forking out hundreds of dollars for what they think are
gorgeous toy poodles, only to discover that their cute pooch is in fact a
ferret pumped up on steroids. [...]

"
'The whole thing is a fake,' said the banker member of our group as we watched
the still-unbelievable moon landing on TV that night of July 20. He was deadly
serious. 'It's a government trick. They shot that whole thing out on the Nevada
flats last spring and now they're foisting it off on us so they can boost our
taxes again without getting any squawks.' " Editorial by Richard Dempewolff
in SCIENCE DIGEST, October, 1969.

Not
even Brother Brigham’s whiskers are safe from BYU’s notorious beard ban.

Legend
has it, the statue of Brigham Young located just south of the ASB once had a
beard, but when administrators decided that facial hair was a faux pas, the
statue was decapitated and given a new, beardless head. [...]